


when all is said and done

by jellijeans



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Affection, Affection Between Friends, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguments, Background Tiz Arrior/Agnès Oblige, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Crystal Crew If You Squint, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Takes place during the yoko sidequest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23304214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellijeans/pseuds/jellijeans
Summary: “So—” Tiz inhales a little bit, and Edea is reminded that even though it’s been three years, she can still see the nineteen year-old in him. Scared, lonely, a little bit hopeless, at least without Agnès. She can also see the twenty-two year-old in him. Bolder, and already dead once, with nothing to lose. A little more reckless in that aspect, maybe, but in a different way than he once was. Still lonely. She watches as Tiz tilts his head, hair slipping to expose his other eye. “Why did you leave, Ringabel?”
Relationships: Edea Lee & Tiz Arrior, Edea Lee & Tiz Arrior & Ringabel, Edea Lee/Ringabel
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	when all is said and done

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to the luxendarc crossing crew (and especially blackie) for this one!!!! love u guys

Edea’s not sure how to feel about Ringabel being back.

She loves him—she really, really does—but the fact that this entire time, he was masquerading as Alternis, and she hadn’t even known? I mean, sure, there were probably a couple of times she should have figured it out. His behavior at the festival in Florem was one thing. Distinctly un-Alternis. If Ringabel had a theme song, it would have been playing there, she supposes. And Alternis still having her bow despite going back in time, and then the _real_ Alternis being confused when she asked about it—yeah, that was kind of weird. But everything else—

—It’s sweet that he was watching over her, but Tiz is right. He could’ve at least said he was back. And the timing is remarkably poor, and she doesn’t even know if he’s staying, and it’s kind of a lot. She wants it to be amazing, but when has it ever been amazing for her? For any of them?

But still, it’s the three of them. Three out of the four warriors of light, or whatever Luxendarc calls them now, just having dinner together. No outside world nonsense, no fawning over them like they’re celebrities or something.

It’s like coming home.

Or at least it would be, if the air wasn’t so damn tense.

Tiz shifts uncomfortably, and Edea can tell this is about to go downhill, and _fast_.

“So—” Tiz inhales a little bit, and Edea is reminded that even though it’s been three years, she can still see the nineteen year-old in him. Scared, lonely, a little bit hopeless, at least without Agnès. She can also see the twenty-two year-old in him. Bolder, and already dead once, with nothing to lose. A little more reckless in that aspect, maybe, but in a different way than he once was. Still lonely. She watches as Tiz tilts his head, hair slipping to expose his other eye. “Why did you leave, Ringabel?”

And isn’t _that_ a loaded question. There’s an edge to Tiz’s voice that usually isn’t there. Edea would be lying if she wasn’t a little afraid of it. Ringabel looks up at him and sets his coffee cup down a little too hard on the table.

He still takes his coffee black. Edea got Tiz’s coffee wrong the first time she gave it to him again, but she’s not sure he noticed—he used to take it weak, with milk and two lumps of sugar, back on their first journey, but she accidentally gave it to him one milk, one sugar. He said he thought that was right, and that it had been so long he could barely remember. She’s not sure how he’s taking it right now. Yew made the coffee today. She’s not even sure if he ever remembered how he used to take it.

But oh, Ringabel. Ringabel remembers.

He’s changed, too. He’s changed significantly since she first met him. He’s become so much like Alternis that it almost hurts, and although he’s acting more like the Ringabel he was when they first met him, she can see the sorrow that laces his face, and she’s reminded that he’s five years older than she is, and has been awake for every bit of it. He could have been there when they needed him. He didn’t even come back to their feast, wasn’t even there when Tiz fell asleep. Edea’s not sure how he even knew Tiz was awake, or that he fell asleep in the first place. It was Alternis that was there at the Sanctum that day, after all.

“I had to,” Ringabel says carefully. His voice is dangerously low. “There were things I had to do in that other world. I needed to...make things right.”

Tiz swallows, and the edges of his mouth go taut. Edea can tell he doesn’t like that answer. There’s something behind his eyes that she can’t quite pick out. “...were things not right here?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Ringabel’s voice is sharp and metallic.

“We needed you here, Ringabel.” Edea can hear the unspoken words that Tiz barely refrains from saying out loud. _I needed you here_. “There was a place for you here. There _is_ a place for you here. I—there was—” He inhales and shuts his eyes, and Edea and Ringabel both wince. They know that look, and they know there are tears behind it. “We needed you.”

“Tiz, I didn’t leave to hurt you.”

“I’m not talking about me,” he says, although somehow, Edea thinks that might not be quite correct. “I’m talking about Agnès. And Edea. They were on opposite sides of the world and _needed_ someone—needed _you_ —and you weren’t there, Ringabel. And I—”

And then the tears rise in his throat and he closes his mouth, and Edea can almost hear him choke back his sob, watches him run his hand through his hair and tug it and look away. And she so _desperately_ wants to reach out, wants to forgive him, because she knows what this is really about, knows who he’s really angry at, knows why he’s doing this—

—but Ringabel doesn’t. There’s so much anger and regret and guilt clouding his gaze that instead he just stares at his coffee cup, voice laced with venom that seems almost as if it came directly from Alternis himself.

“And where were _you,_ Tiz?”

“Where was I? Ringabel, I was—”

“You were fucking _asleep_ , Tiz. You were in a coma. Did you ever intend to tell any of us that you were planning to die for two and a half years, or was that just going to be a surprise? Did you think of the consequences of that?”

All three of them wince. Edea’s hands burn with an itch she needs to get out, but she doesn’t want to leave the two of them alone like this. She can’t risk losing them. Not again. Not like this. And they need each other. She knows that, knows _Ringabel_ knows that, and yet—

“Of _course_ I thought of the consequences of that,” Tiz spits, and he is angry, blisteringly hot, burning with a vengeance. “You of all people should know that! You were there for me after Til died! You knew how I felt!”

Ringabel’s head snaps up, eyes red with anger. “I didn’t think you were going to die on us! You can’t just do that—”

“We needed you, Ringabel! _I needed you!_ ”

“We needed you too! You told us you were going to go back to Norende! We thought you would be alright!”

“You wouldn’t have known since you—”

“Will you two _stop?"_

Edea’s voice is wet with frustration, and she knows it. She lifts a hand to her cheek and draws it away, and isn’t surprised to feel the dampness of tears on her fingertips. This isn’t the first time on this journey, and it certainly won’t be the last. She’s just...she’s _furious_. She can feel the anger burning in her chest, but most of all she just wants Tiz and Ringabel to stop fighting, to stop all this nonsense and be the brothers in arms that they’re supposed to be. She inhales. Her voice shakes.

“Stop it. Both of you. You’re better than this,” she says miserably. “Stop pretending like it was just one of you. You’re both taking it out on each other. We needed both of you.”

There’s a sudden quiet that radiates from both of them, a guilt that hits her from both sides in waves. She takes another shaky breath and continues.

“You’re just—you both—you both feel bad about things you did. And I won’t say if you should or shouldn’t, because that’s not my place, and I’m not your mother." They both wince. She herself winces in return, suddenly recalling their familial situations. Shit. She should have expected that. Nonetheless, she pushes through it and keeps talking. "But I won’t let you keep doing this to yourselves! I won’t let you both keep convincing yourselves that you’re mad at each other when you’re really mad at yourselves!”

And there it is. A tear, wet and fat and round and no longer just on her cheek, splashing into her coffee. They both used to make fun of her for how much sugar she put into it. “You both fucked up,” she says, “or at least you think you did, and I won’t let you take it out on each other.” She sniffles and wipes the tears away, face still flushed. “I’m...I’m not dealing with this. I was going to try to, but I’m—I’m just not.”

“Edea—”

But before she can hear the rest of what Ringabel says, she’s outside, just trying to breathe and feel the air against her face.

~

“Hey.”

Tiz’s voice is soft, warmer when he places a gentle hand on her shoulder—large, rough, calloused, the way she always remembered it while he was asleep, a shepherd’s hand through and through—and apologetic when he squeezes lightly and takes his place beside her. When she looks up, his face, too, is slightly worn from crying, red-ringed around the eyes.

“Hey,” she mutters, and rests her head on his shoulder. He doesn’t move it. She appreciates that.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You were right. Ringabel and I shouldn’t have gone at each other like that.” He huffs out a breath. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“It’s fine,” she mutters. “I get it. It’s been a stressful journey for everyone.”

“How could it not be?” he says with a laugh, tinged with no bitterness, just a little bit of fatigue. She feels it vibrate all the way through his chest—that’s something she’s missed, too. Tiz laughs with his whole chest. It was rare on their first journey, something to be cherished, and yet something unbreakable at the same time. It’s comforting that it’s still like that. “Still, you were right. I—I was just taking out a lot of my own...stuff on Ringabel, I guess. We both snapped out of it once you left. I apologized to him.”

“That’s good,” she says. The post-cry tiredness is starting to hit her. “I can’t deal with you two fighting. You never do. That’s supposed to be me and Agnès’ job.”

“You two barely fought after we left Eisen in the first world,” Tiz points out.

Edea snorts. “We were too tired to.” She pauses, then, and exhales slowly, letting everything out. “It’s weird how we call it ‘the first world’. It’s just our world. It’s always been that.”

“I don’t think we feel like we belong here anymore,” Tiz says quietly. “I know I don’t. I’m supposed to be dead.”

It would be funny if it were anyone else but Tiz who said that, Edea thinks, but it’s not. It’s not funny. It’s just somber and sad and she doesn’t like it.

“Please don’t say that,” she says softly. But Tiz's questionable soul situation aside, she knows he's right. They don't belong anywhere anymore.

Tiz shakes it off. “Sorry.”

“But Tiz—in all seriousness—please don’t die on us again.”

Tiz goes achingly silent, as if he were never there at all. She’s only certain that he is because her head is still tucked on his shoulder, feeling the very edges of his pulse through her cheek.

“...Altair deserves to be happy,” he says haltingly, the sentence leaking out of his mouth word by word, agonizingly slow.

“I know,” she says, not quite understanding, “but you do, too.”

He doesn’t respond after that, just exhales and closes his eyes.

Edea knows him. She knows him better than almost anyone else, probably with the only exception being Agnès herself. She knows that he blames himself for leaving, and she knows he blames himself for hurting her and Agnès. She’s not stupid. She knows there’s something else on his mind, but she doesn’t press him. They’ve never been able to get anything out of Tiz like that.

Instead, she just keeps her head on his shoulder and hopes he’ll stay, as if her presence beside him alone could keep him bound here by her side until all four of them can be together again.

At some point, Tiz’s breathing evens out, and she realizes he’s fallen asleep, his head leaning lightly against the top of hers. Ringabel appears again and sits on her other side, placing one hand on top of hers and lacing his fingers between hers.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, kissing her cheek. She laughs.

“You know, Tiz has already given me this whole spiel.”

“He was always better about apologizing than I was.” His voice is sad, but there’s a slight smile on his face, something she hasn’t seen in a while. It makes her heart beat all the way up to her throat. She loves it. She loves _him_.

“I’m sure he told you. He’s upset about Agnès. He’s...not taking it too great.”

“He did tell me,” Ringabel confirms. “I understand. I would be upset, too.”

“...I was upset,” Edea says softly. Ringabel exhales. Beside her, Tiz shifts, and she once again notices the bags under his eyes and how _tired_ he looks. He doesn’t _look_ older, per se, but he just...seems it. She’s worried about him. Has been for a long time.

“Is he doing alright?” Ringabel asks. Edea’s mouth tightens at the corners.

“I wish I could say he is.” She sighs. “Altair told us he’s not, but I can barely get him to open up. You know how he is.”

“He’s always been like that,” Ringabel says. Boy, doesn’t Edea know it.

There’s another pause, another moment of graceful silence, before Edea brings the back of Ringabel’s hand to her mouth, kissing each knuckle softly. She hadn’t noticed how many scars there were before, both from his time as Alternis and as a planeswarden.

“I’m sorry.” Ringabel closes his eyes.

“You already said that.”

“Not just for the argument.” His hand flexes in hers. “I’m sorry for leaving.”

“You had to do whatever you had to do,” she responds. Just being able to hold his hand in hers again is a luxury. She’s missed this. She’s missed _him_.

Dinner didn’t quite feel like home. But this, with both of them beside her—this does. They just need Agnès, and then things can be like they were, like they’re meant to be. They can all be together again.

“I didn’t,” he says quietly, “I could have stayed. But thank you for understanding.”

Edea nods. At some point, Tiz comes back to life, apologizes again and then blearily wanders back to the tent, falling asleep where Yew and Magnolia laid out his bed while they had their coffee break. Edea watches him until he lays down and then leans over to Ringabel, fitting her mouth over his and relishing in the sweetness, in the taste she’s been deprived of for years.

“I waited for you—”

“—I know—”

“—and waited, and _waited_ —”

“—I know, and I’m sorry, my dear—”

“—and I would wait forever if I needed to, but don’t make me do that.”

She pulls away and studies his face for a moment—his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, his stupid pompadour—and then the emotions hit her and she leans into him, throwing her arms around his neck and just staying there, holding him in silence as one arm wraps around her waist and the other runs up and down her back.

“I can’t promise I’ll come back right away, but I will return. I can promise you that.”

“You better.”

“I don’t intend to keep you waiting forever, Edea.”

“I hope not.”

And there is so much to relish, just in that moment, his arms around her and so much warmth that she had almost forgotten existed. So much she wants to hold onto for so much longer than she can. And she hates, she hates, she _hates_ that this can only last for a single fleeting moment until they leave this place and both of them must go back to their separate lives, but she’ll hold onto it for now, this promise of coming back together after crystals know how long.

It’s all they have.

She can’t help but be jealous of Yew and Magnolia, linked at the hip, with the privilege of always being by and near and with each other. She can’t help but remember that once, she and Tiz had had that, too, with Ringabel and Agnès, through five different worlds, and had loved each other all the same. She can’t do anything but hope that they will have the happy ending they fought for.

It’s all they have.

And if, that night, she catches Ringabel muffling a sob as he pulls her closer, or she sees Tiz sit up in the middle of the night, gazing at Agnès with tears in his eyes through the chipped-off remnant of her pendant, she doesn’t mention it, just clings to the undying hope that one day, the future for them will not be like this.

It’s all they have.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! if you liked this, you can catch me on twitter at @jellijeans!!
> 
> stan tiz arrior


End file.
